


Shallow

by CallmeIsmail



Category: Arthurian Mythology, Arthurian Mythology & Related Fandoms, Original Work, Romans | Arthurian Romances - Chrétien de Troyes
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Celtic Mythology & Folklore, Character Death, Drunken behavior, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Intersex Character, M/M, Mabinogion, Male Homosexuality, Mentions of Mabinogion, Mildly Dubious Consent, Multi, Oral Sex, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Sex, Suicidal Thoughts, Wales, Welsh Folklore & Mythology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:26:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23984536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CallmeIsmail/pseuds/CallmeIsmail
Summary: In the wake of Nimue's death, Arthur loses himself in a haze of self-deprecation and daily drunkenness, until one night his dear friend and advisor, Lancelot, decides he better intervene before it is too late, before Arthur joins his dead lover as a shadow between the fields of Annwn, the Underworld.
Relationships: Arthur Pendragon/Nimueh, Lancelot du Lac/Arthur Pendragon, Original Character & Original Character, Original Male Character/Original Male Character, Original character original character
Comments: 4
Kudos: 3





	Shallow

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! This is my first fic in this fandom- or should I say my first piece of Arthurian cycle's reinterpretation ^^.  
> As you will see, I was mainly inspired by welsh mythology in the writing of this short story since many scholars believe that it is indeed in Wales that the Arthurian saga first came to be. It is an extremely interesting subject and since I quote it a couple of times during the course of this story I thought it would be necessary for me to provide an index of terms, places and names that maybe are not so well known (but I might be wrong, I don't know, I'm doing it just to be sure XD) and you will find it at the end of the fic. Anyway, it is truly just a way to write some angst, hopefully in a way you guys might enjoy. I certainly wish so. Please, let me know what you think and have a good read ^^.

She had risen from the crests of the lake like a morphing serpent would grow out of its skin.

Wet, fair and sensitive, the first time they took a glimpse of her frame, Nimue’s wild red hair adorned her neck and chest as if it were a myriad of wooden branches, barely covering her skin, much less her tender brownish nipples.

Her lonely dark eye stared towards the rings in the water that the rising of her figure had caused, as her right fist went to pinch and sniff her nose, all the while she tried to remove the last lake droplets from the rest of her face, where a stripe of sensitive, bubbly, wrinkled red and white skin occluded her other eye, almost impossible to discern in the distance from the thickness of the bushes they were hidden behind and the intensity of her burning.

She had failed to notice them in the beginning or, at least, that’s what she had made them believe, what she would later tell.

But Arthur and Cei - as Lancelot still allowed others to call him - had anyhow persisted upon spying the creature risen from the waves of the lake as she once again delved into its depths, ready to conquer that centuries old realm cast away from human claim.

Arthur had looked mesmerized.

His eyes had filled with a curiosity that his childhood friend had rarely ever witnessed over the young prince’s features.

Eventually, Nimue emerged from the water a second time, swimming towards the shallow with her head over the surface and it was probably then that she became aware of them.

She smiled.

And, once back to the shore, she stood up.

The red branches of her hair stuck to her skin like glue and pointed the way towards her pelvis, where, from a bush of reddish feather-like hairs, her dark genitalia appeared: a folded slit, encased by two round, small bulges.

Arthur came out of the bushes then and confidently advanced towards her, until he was just a few feet away from her.

They stilled like that for a bit, as if they were two wild beasts studying each other before battle, as if there was no one else in the world and time had stopped.

“Cease staring at me like so.”, she finally proclaimed.

And, just like that, just as easy as he came to Lance, Arthur left him.

***

It is out of a barn that Cei finally finds Arthur, covered in dirt, half-asleep and drunk as the lord that he is.

He finds the young sire as he’s struggling to maintain himself awake, a jug of whatever liquor he decided to waste himself with under one arm, the other moving some wild strands of his corvine hair out of the features of his face, as he lies on the ground wet with the newly formed mud that the heavy rain of the not-yet-passed night has tormented the valleys and hills surrounding _Llyn Ogwen_ , their childhood home. It is here that Lancelot - as his royal friend liked to call Cei, that same name that has earned a boy born into servitude a place in History as the javelin champion of the Bear of _Mynydd Baddon_ , slaughterer of Saxons – met Arthur for the very first time.

And it is always here that Lancelot knew he would find him.

For how greatly the popularity of Arthur amongst the people that regarded the twenty-five year old prince as a saintly deliverer sent by the Dead God of the Christians or the Sovereigners of _Annwn_ alike could increase, for how many warlords of Britain could recognize him as the rightful heir to Uther’s throne as their leader and despite how many of the defeated Saxons and Irish would bow down to him, Arthur always tended to become rather nostalgic whenever a loss would occur.

And he would come back here crawling as he used to do when he was a child.

Lancelot still remembers how they first met; when he was still Cei and Arthur – the boy he would later learn to call a brother, the Bear of _Mynydd Baddon_ , the Sheath of Caliburn, Lover of the Lady of the Lake – was still just a little bastard under the protection and guidance of the most feared druid of all of Britain, Merlin the Wise, his mentor.

Both welcomed in the House of Hector, an old friend of Merlin’s and owner of these lands - the lands of Maris - Lancelot and Arthur had grown up separately, as it was costume for their different age and social standing, until one day the twelve year old boy who worked in the stalls was sent out by none other than the Druid himself to look for little Art – age seven - who had once again run from the man’s lectures with a low blow to the latter’s sick leg; but it was only much later, twilight descending upon them, that Cei finally found Arthur, as he was sitting on the fence of the same barn he’s currently lying in – now decayed and rotten by years of raids – drinking some fresh cow milk that the owners of the farm had provided him with while entertaining him with the mundane activities of a peasant.

The young squire had mumbled an half apology then, before they could even take notice of him or before they could realize he was approaching the young prince; he took the little boy’s hand and gently encouraged him to leave but Arthur was having none of that and started protesting.

“I don’t want to go back!”, the boy had said, stomping his feet and sporting a pout. “Merlin is mean. They’re all mean. And Pwyll and Branwen are not.”

He heard them chuckle before he could rise his eyes up to them, his resolution completely fallen from his gaze, and even now he distinctly remembers their gentle, wrinkled, smiling faces.

They commented on the fact that it was almost night, that it was dangerous for two young, unattended boys to venture the road alone that late and offered them a warm meal and a bed to sleep in until the next day, so that they could leave on a safer time and Arthur would have time to sooth his disappointment.

Predictably, Little Art agreed without asking questions nor opinions, an attitude customary for boys his age and royalty such as himself.

And, to be fair to Arthur, Myrdinn Emrys was capable of sending shivers down the spine of every lord in the land – irish, welsh, celts and saxons alike – by his presence alone and surely his rough voice, his thick black beard, his ill-temperament, the limp in his old, wounded, rotting leg and the blue markings spotted all over his face – which made him look like one of those barbarians up north that the then young Cei had only ever heard about - didn’t help one bit when paired with the mischieves of an unruly child.

And it was fairly easy to see why Arthur wouldn’t want to meet him anytime soon after stomping on his injured leg.

Rumor had it that the old priest whose face - as Lancelot recalls - was hidden by the hood of his white cloak, was truly the son of the Devil, the demonic creature that Christians preached to be constantly along the path of human life, even when one couldn’t see it, and that he had been conceived for the sole purpose of reducing the ranks of Christianity, by slaughtering and eating its acolytes.

Apparently, what went beyond christian knowledge was the fact that Merlin was a vegetarian. Arthur had put it simply; he informed his friend that the old man was that weird because he was one of those savages from north of the wall.

Yet, even now, the only one who could go unpunished near Merlin, the only one that might spite him in his presence and live to tell the tale was still Arthur.

Even though they had become distant over the years. 

But as he recollects their little getaway to the fields of the land ended abruptly the next day, before they could even munch some breakfast, when none other than Sir Hector himself – frustrated, sporting a very short breath - came to collect them and Cei got punished with ten lashes on his back for failing his only task, while Art and the rest of the townfolks watched.

Inexplicably though, the two boys became inseparable from that moment on.

Even as Arthur’s face had barely shown any sign of regret or guilt – not even a wince – at the sound of Cei’s pained cries. Even as the little boy calmly cleaned the gushes left on the young lancer’s back by a merciless whip afterwards.

They had seen the barn burn under the flames set all over the land by the enraged raiders and they saw Pwyll and Branwen - old as time -die childless under the flaming ruins of their farm but this always remained their happy little place; filled with memories of nice people that became their step parents and a night they spent awake as Arthur refused to sleep and cuddled next to Cei, placing his head over his legs, asking him to tell him a story.

At least until Nimue came into the scene.

The mumbles and the unintelligible words that come out of Arthur’s mudded lips, heavy with liquor and marred by tears cried by his beautiful grey eyes, laced with remorse and desire for his dead lover, perversely remember Lancelot of those days in a way.

He had been so needy for the attention of someone who would love him back then, and now he still searches for it here: drunken, desperate and plagued by the death of his one and only love.

That wretched freak.

What Arthur had found in that redhaired creature - arrogant, presumptous and cunning as she was – no one truly understood.

Only young Bedwyr, to some extent, seemed to be able to understand Arthur’s infatuation with the witch of the burned face, the one they would call the Lady of _Llyn Ogwen_ , so frequent was her habit of bathing in it. And in fact, Bedwyr had been the one sending Lancelot to look out for Arthur that night, after he disappeared from every tavern they could think of, when not even Merlin would bother.

“Look out for him.”, Arthur’s young steward had said to him. “He needs you.”

And so he went, because Bedwyr’s eyes had reminded him so much of that boy he had spent his nights here with during his childhood.

That same boy who would later grow up to sideline him for the freak of nature that Nimue was.

Silently, Lancelot approaches Arthur and gets to his height. He takes his face in his hands and moves the prince’s wild locks from his features, before wiping the tears from his eyes and the snot and mud from the rest of his visage. He takes in the sight and Arthur does look so much like the angry boy he had gotten whipped for; he’s conscious but he’s pouting and Lancelot realizes that the brown, stubborn traces on his beard are not remnants of mud, but beads of vomit and he feels thankful for having arrived here before the young man in front of him could choke himself with his own retching, even as Arthur keeps sobbing with his eyes closed.

What a pathetic end would it be for the newly appointed heir to Camelot's throne.

And what a shameful state for a prince of Britain to be reduced to.

He’s in disarray, this is undeniable: his cloak is gone, his pants are wet with piss (just how drunk is he?) and his shirt is torn open, sign that someone must have attacked him during his drunken wanderings, revealing the few hair on his fair skinned chest, devoid of any trace of a scar, a very uncommon occurrence for a warrior of his stance.

He sees a couple of livids, right over his left nipple and upon a closer look he starts to wonder if they are, in fact, livids.

And he feels himself becoming red at the thought of the other possibility.

He dismisses that thought and pulls his friend up, his arms firmly secured under Arthur’s armpits to lift him upright, as the latter begins groaning for the loss of his jug of wine - now completely wasted on the muddy ground - and starts punching and pulling at Lancelot’s back, ranting like a child who just lost his toy, or a drunken who had dropped his wine.

As Lance lifts him up on his shoulders and later secures him on his horse (and makes sure that he has enough space in front of him to vomit, in case he ever needs it) Lancelot turns back to take one last look at the barn, munched by the feeble light of the approaching day and by years of neglect, memory of a life that could be and never was.

He hopes he will never have to see it again.

With that set aside, Lancelot realizes that it is indeed a small ride the one that runs from the barn to Hector’s manor, way shorter than he remembered it to be when he delved into the fields as a boy, brief enough to allow them to come back to Maris with the moon still etched into the sky; too early for any servant to be outside already, too late for even the most drunkyard soldier of all of their camp to hold a candlelit against the powerful calling of sleep.

But it’s a good thing, Lancelot thinks as he struggles to both sooth Arthur’ relentlessness and mantain a steady grip on his horses’reins, that means no one will see them.

He directs the horse towards Hector’s house, the old and decadent Domus Casta, a home that the romans had built for themselves on a land that didn’t belong to them with servants and slaves they had no right to institute, but that yet, somehow, still managed to convey a sense of prestige and power, for which reason it had been the stage and prize of countless, petty disputes between lords.

He wouldn’t normally come here – after all, this is no longer his house (nor has it ever been, considering the fact that he used to live in one of the huts attached to the kitchens and stalls with his old mother, Saraide) and their camp lays just a couple of miles away from here – but both Hector and Merlin had insisted that Arthur slept here.

They thought it was only appropriate for him to be located in his childhood home, and one with such great prestige at that; this way the new sovereign of the confederate lands of Britain would pay homage to the people that served him and helped him rise to power, the people of Hector, before definitely leaving for Camelot, their new homeland.

He was also supposed to give a speech, Lancelot recollects as he secures his horse to the pole inside the stalls and makes to lift Arthur with his arms before the man stumbles upon him and Lance is forced to just drag him through the halls and rooms of the manor before finally getting to his quarters.

A speech to all of the people of Maris, he keeps thinking as he lands Arthur’s body on his bed and starts to remove his muddy boots, one that would reassure them of his loyalty - of his love - as if no one in town knew who Arthur was or where his loyalties lied.

But judging from the prince’s state, that speech is not coming soon.

Nor are they going to leave for Camelot in a couple of days.

These same chambers Lancelot has brought him back in, these same walls that witness Arthur’s delusions and cries day after day as he refuses to move an inch outside of them if not to get wasted, reek of his dead lover.

And, as a matter of fact, it is indeed here that Nimue met her demise.

None of them could tell what happened afterwards.

Lance just remembers watching the both of them retire to their quarters out of the corner of his eye as he and the others – Peredur, Gareth, Cullwych and Dag – kept getting wasted, uncaring of being laid off yet another time by a man who had become so much of a lord he forgot to remain a friend.

“It’s nothing new.”, he remembers thinking as the dizziness that comes with too much ale slowly took the best of him, trying so hard to pretend he did not care. “Let them have their fun.”

And yet now, as he removed Arthur’s boots from his feet and moves away from the waistband of his pants (after hearing him moan) to take off his wet and mudded shirt, Lancelot can’t help but ask himself if there was something different about Nimue that night, if for the first time in his life since he met her she hadn’t looked sad.

Whatever.

He always hated her anyway.

And she wasn't even a real woman, so why would he care about someone like that, a scourge of the gods.

But the next day it was Arthur’s desperate pleads for help that brought half of the court to his chambers.

As soon as Lance was woken up by Bedwyr and got the news he rushed to the place, only to find a crying, delirious, half-naked Arthur encased by Merlin’s arms as Nimue’s body, who laid in a pool of blood secreted by none other than her deformed, stretched out genitals, was carried out of the room.

She was dead.

No one could tell what happened, Lancelot keeps telling himself as he pleads Arthur to wake up, as he tells his friend he’s going to fetch a bath for him, because he needs it.

That didn’t stop people from wondering though.

Nor guessing.

He heard some of the cooks say that the prince finally got rid of the bitch.

Some said Arthur had to have something bad about him, some secrets to keep; he couldn’t be all perfect. And that that was it.

They talked about sacrificing virgins to him for the sake of Britain’s peace as if the prince were some kind of a monster. As if Nimue had been a virgin to begin with.

But Arthur could never do that.

Not to any girl and certainly not to Nimue, whatever thing she was.

For how confident he looked, Arthur had always been a harsh, pouty, insecure mess.

And for some reason that’s still foreign even to his closest friends, he loved Nimue with all of his heart. Even as rude as she was. Even as... damaged as he was.

He would never hurt her.

“Arthur,”, he whispers softly in his friend’s ear, “Arthur. You need to wake up.”

Arthur ignores him, he just keeps lying on his side with his shirt off and crouches further into himself, makes to bring his black hair over his eyes once again, something he used to do when he was a child whenever he wanted to get out of a conversation.

Lancelot catches his hand before he can even reach his eyes.

“Art.”, he says, “Seriously, please, stop this.”

“Fuck you!!”, Arthur yells all of a sudden, speaking for the first time that night, angry and aggressive, coherent speech against drunken mumbles.

“This is all your fault!”, he rages on, getting to his knees and throwing cushions at Lancelot, “This happened because of you! You wanted her dead. You all wanted her dead. And now you come here telling me what to do?! Go fuck yourself! Get the fuck out!!”

He shoves a punch at Lance but he’s do drunk that it’s not hard for the soldier to catch his hand and the other subsequently as the prince tries his luck yet again.

For however drunk he is, Arthur keeps trashing and when he understands that there's no escape from Lancelot's hold he starts to kick his legs; but even his kicks are not difficult to stop, all Lancelot has to do is press him down to the mattress and his struggles do not feel as powerful as before, almost caving in.

“My fault?”, Lancelot replies, offended. “How could this ever be my fault?”

“Because,” Arthur says, looking up at him from the mattress, trapped as he is under Lancelot’s body pressure “You all wanted me to leave her. You all tormented and snickered and belittled her as if she was a freak of nature. I fucking loved her, with all of my heart and you fucking told her I didn’t want her because we couldn’t have children. Who fucking cares about brats?! I wanted her.”

He breaks up and starts crying again. In earnest this time, tears pouring out of his eyes at an unbelievable pace.

“That’s all I wanted. She was all I wanted”, he cries, “And you shattered us to make room for a life I never asked for.” That’s when it happens.

Lance lets his guard down and Arthur kneecaps him in the gut, making him heave.

But somehow he manages to not let go of Arthur’s hands.

“We were just thinking of what’s best for you, Arthur. You’re the heir to Uther, if you failed to take notice. You can’t simply laze around with whomever you want. Especially someone like her.”

“Best for me?” Arthur exclaims, outraged. “You’ve been fucking jealous of her since the moment we met. You’ve been talking shit about her constantly in these past eight years. You. Uttered. Nothing. But. Calumnies. You made her feel as she was not enough for me.”

“I wasn’t jealous.”, Lancelot lies, as if Arthur can’t see the blush on his face or feel the obvious falsehood. “How is it that you can’t see she was manipulating you? She only wanted to be queen.”

“Oh, is that so? Is that why she came fucking crying to me, asking me to try and have children all of a sudden, as if I gave a shit about them in the first place? Is that why she let the hair on her face grow so that we could trick Connor into believing she was me? Is that why she renounced to her femininity and stood by my side even when all those shit lords I should have slaughtered abandoned us? Give me a fucking break."

He spits at Lancelot.

“You are all fucking snakes. All of you. You hated her because I valued her more than you and you convinced her I would leave her if we didn’t try to have children. As if she could.”

He finally frees his hands and brings them to his face, covering it with his hair.

“And look what fucking happened.”

Lancelot is too busy to wipe the spit out of his eye and his face to notice that Arthur has apparently calmed down but none of it fucking matters right now.

“Do you hear what you’re saying? You trust the words of a fucking witch, a whore, a damned hermaphrodite more than the advise of your closest friends. You are an idiot. You prefer living in the delusional words of a dead bitch instead of being grateful for what you have. Do you think those lords would ever respect you, fear you, if they knew you liked to fuck freaks?”

Arthur slaps him, as hard as he can.

And as his eyes fill once again with tears and Lancelot catches his own jaw he yells.

“If there’s anyone that should be fucking grateful that’s you! You wouldn’t have been nothing, nothing without me and…”

It’s Lance’s time to slap him this time.

In fact, he slaps him so hard that he can see his friend spilling blood before falling once again prone on the mattress.

He’s a mess.

He cries and sniffs as he lies utterly humiliated on the covers. And pity and guilt settle again into Lance’s eyes.

“Arthur”, he goes to gently caress him, “Arthur, I’m sorr…”

As he shifts towards his friend's frame, Lance's knee accidentally bumps into what is the middle of Arthur’s legs and that’s when the lancer realizes that the smell that has been coming from Arthur's pants might not have been piss all along. And that the man is hard.

Confused, taken aback, Lance gently removes the strands of hair from Arthur’s cheeks and he sees , under the tears, that his friend has become red with shame.

He’s sniffing, mumbling, and he’s turned back to that incoherent mess from before, the one that reminded him of little Art, a boy whose memory is now ruined by questions and thoughts about what the man he has turned into thrives for in bed.

“Oh, Arthur.” Lance whispers as his friend closes his eyes and lifts his left hand to pull back the locks of his hair on his face, once again trying to hide.

 _What have you been up to tonight_ \- he thinks as he circles the small, red livid around Arthur’s areola (now that his suspicions are confirmed) and, when he feels his breathe itch with responsiveness, as he slowly moves his hand to place it upon the prince's scrotum. And again he wonders, _Is this what you used to do with Nimue_.

He presses his left hand to Arthur’s erection and slowly starts to massage it through his pants, eliciting writhes and keen moans from the Bear of _Mynydd Baddon_ , who lays on his side open mouthed and with his neck exposed.

His eyes are half-lidded and the dizziness that characterized his drunkenness is now fueling his arousal.

The lancer uses his free end to cup his friend's cheeks and after a couple of particularly powerful strokes that have Arthur thrashing from desire, Lancelot lowers his to start places soft kisses over the man's neck, interlacing them with lappings of tongue and gentle suckling.

It’s not the first time Lancelot does something like this.

He still remembers a quiet evening of lonely drinking, away from his men and friends, depressed over a lost battle; a weird looking lad, middle-aged and just a couple inches shorter than him. He recollects the smile on the man's face, how he offered to get the lancer another drink and suggesting they play some _gwyddbwyll_. He remembers how the man had felt the need to roll up his sleeves just to move some game pieces on a wooden board and he still remembers how, half in and half out, his own gaze had lingered over the muscles of the elder.

Just like he had found himself ogling Arthur’s chest many times before that night. 

He can indulge in his fantasies now, the man's chest is now on full display, devoid of any traces of scar or even a bush of hair, and after lowering the hem of Arthur’s pants and placing his fingers over his friend’s slit, circling it, he engulfs the nipple surrounded by the kissmark with his mouth - and starts licking. 

It's like he believed it would feel, it truly does.

Arthur tastes sweet, hot and his nipple has such a smooth, clean texture. He never found this in any other man.

He further lowers Arthur’s pants until they get to his knees and for a moment he leaves the man’s thriving cock unattended in the air, so he can start caressing the prince's inner thighs. Arthur moans and bucks his body up to meet Lancelot’s ministrations, while the latter switches to his other nipple; he grazes it with his teeth as he starts lapping his tongue around the sensitive bud and then, when Arthur’s chest becomes red with his doings, he bits the tip of the nipple, causing a little pained cry to come out of the man.

He shivers.

It’s not like he didn’t always know, Lancelot, what he was; but it was that night with that man that it truly started. And somehow, it's with Arthur, his childhood friend, his lord, the man he's been staring at for so long, now drunk and hard beneath him after the loss of his lover, that it goes on.

He wonders, though, if Arthur truly realizes who he's doing this with, if he's simply letting himself believe he's with Nimue again.

But he leans in to every touch, moans for more at every lick, at every pull and Lancelot finally realizes that Arthur is trying to forget. To forget all.

“Everything’s going to be alright, Arthur.”, he whispers softly into his friend's ears as he rests his hands over Arthur’s inner thighs, before lowering his head to accommodate Arthur’s penis between his lips. 

"I will take care of you."

It doesn’t take long for Arthur to come in his mouth.

A quick lick, a little bobbing of the head and all is done.

As the man is spent, Lancelot catches the basin near the bed to spit all the come that he almost swallowed and puts it under the mattress, so no one will see it. He ignores his own erection and completely takes off Arthur’s pants before pulling the sheets over his body. To his joy, Arthur does look a little bit more serene now and he takes the jug of water that Lancelot offers him almost immediately, taking a sip and thanking him. 

For what precisely he cannot tell.

Lancelot simply smiles and places a kiss over his head; mumbles a little, _don't worry, I know it's tough_ , caresses his face once again and makes sure that Arthur is on his side in the case he might throw up again tonight.

And then leaves.

***

He meets Bedwyr late in the morning the next day, around midday, when he’s chewing on some salted pieces of meat that Hector's butchers have left hanging on a string in the air to dry, a jug of fresh milk in his right hand; he just woke up and has been wandering through the camp with one of the worst headaches of his life – one that he’s not quite sure has anything to do with the drinking or the heavy wrestling he got into the night before with some of his fellow soldiers, even though this is what he prefers to tell everybody who asks.

The young lad approaches him from behind and stings his back with a wooden stick, startling him from his dizziness, so that the milk he’s been drinking falls on the ground and the jug is shattered in a myriad of pieces.

Lancelot turns to look at the culprit and finding it to be that little insolent of Arthur's page, he shoots a reprimanding look and ponders the idea of hitting the boy once and for all, so often it is that the ginger plays petty pranks on him; but he settles with pushing him to the ground with a hard shove, before returning to sort through the best streaks of meat he can find.

“What do you want, brat?” he finally says, when he realizes he child hasn't left.

“It’s Arthur.”, Bedwyr replies from the ground where his butt has landed from the push. “Merlin says that you need to help me fetch the water for his bath.”

Lancelot stills at the mention of the prince's name, but quickly puts his uncaring act on and scoffs.

“I’m not a servant. Go ask Saraide or Cynric.”

“Cei,” the boy interjects with a soft whisper, calling the lancer with his old name, the one that he doesn’t like to hear. “I can't carry all the water by myself if I have to do it quickly and Merlin says that no one has to know.”

“That Arthur is taking a bath?” Lance jokes as his heart plummets to the ground with sorrow, forced to hide his concern for the sake of his stupid secrets and pride.

He doesn't want to have anything to do with it anymore.

“That he’s reduced like he is.”, Bed says, tears stinging at the corner of his eyes.

Damn him. He’s always been too sweet for his own good.

“Please Cei”, he pleads, composing himself, “I know you brought him back yesterday.”

And again, those eyes.

Lancelot drops his meat. He probably shouldn’t be prying on it anyway.

He looks around and finds an empty bucket near a tree where some clothes are hanging – the blood from the battle and the stains of mud and sweat dripping from their edges as they dry in the warm midday wind– and collects it before going back to Bedwyr.

"Let's go pick the water from the dwell behind Domus Casta. Nobody uses it anymore."

Bedwyr smiles and quickly gets up and follows Lancelot with no further question.

After a while, Lance interjects him and says: "You knew I brought him back yesterday because you asked me to. Don't act as if you know what I shall or shan't do."

"I know that.", Bedwyr replies from behind him, "It is still something that not everybody would have done."

Lancelot shrugs. And when they get to the dwell they collect the water in silence.

***

When he next sees Arthur is from the crack of the latter's quarters’ doors.

He helped Bedwyr to fetch the water and heated it for him but he let the little lad bring it inside the prince’s rooms all by himself.

The memory of the prievous night is still fresh in his mind and he’s not quite sure how Arthur might react, he’s not sure how he himself might react.

And he doesn’t want to find out.

He sent Bedwyr to fetch something to eat, though.

Arthur could use something other than booze to alleviate his pain, he told the twelve year old, and a good stew has always been a marvelous friend to those who hurt.

So now he is outside his friend’s doors alone, awaiting for the page, listening carefully to the words that are spoken inside.

Merlin is in there with him and from the crack in the doors, he can see how the old man, now bald, propped upon a stool - so unlike himself -is helping Arthur clean himself up.

He gently pours some soaped, warm water on his hair while the man he raised keeps sobbing and keening as if he was again a little boy, and when he takes notice of the fact that Arthur is not going to raise his hands to wash himself, Merlin makes up for it and starts to scratch the brunette's scalp, until all the mud and sweat come off, until Lancelot can clearly see the tears falling from Arthur's eyes trickle down his nose.

The druid then proceeds to take a sponge and silently brushes the prince’s neck, his shoulders, and it is only when he arrives to the tender, reddish spots on Arthur's chest that the man bursts into a real cry - powerful and unhinged, fueled by what is either pain or shame or both - clinging to the old man, holding him.

Merlin hugs him back.

“Everything will be alright, _Ghràdhaich aon_.”, Emrys whispers into his now clean hair, placing a kiss on the top of his crown and caressing him through his sobs.

“I promise.”

“I miss her so much.”, Arthur cries into Merlin’s robes, “Why did she leave me?”

“She didn’t leave you, dear Art; she fulfilled her purpose in life. She helped us win Connor. She was instrumental to conquer _Mynidd Baddon_. History will not forget her but it is time that you do. What the Gods rule to happen, we must accept. Console yourself knowing that she is finally feasting along the rulers of _Annwn_. We will all reach her one day, sooner or later.”

“But you can bring her back though, right?”, he says between tears, lifting his head for the first time in however long this conversation has been lasting, staring directly into Merlin’s eyes.

And Lancelot could swear that for a brief moment his tormented gaze has settled upon him too.

“You brought back that mutilated girl murdered by Uther. You surely can bring back Nimue too, right?”

Merlin cups Arthur’s face and removes the strands of hair from his eyes with his wrinckled fingers, a little bit more difficultly with the few remaining ones in his left hand, and kisses both of his protegèe's cheeks.

“You never believed in that story, Arthur”, Merlin simply – cruelly – replies.

And Arthur's head once again lands on the robes of Merlin’s chest.

He screams and cries and yells and keens, all the while Merlin shushes him and runs caresses to his back.

“Let it all out, my dear.”, he says as he holds him, “We're all here for you. I’m here. Your friends are here. Eventually you will learn to live as she never existed.”

“I don’t want to live without her…”, Arthur sobs, his voice broken.

“Oh, stop it.", Merlin replies, switching to his usual condescending tone. "Today is today, but I don't want to hear any of this again, do you understand me? I indulged your self-loathing and melancholia because I thought you might need the time to mourn. But you are the new King of Camelot, it is high time you started acting your part.”

“But...”

“Arthur.”, Merlin warns him, “That is enough.”

Somehow, Arthur seems to have nothing to say this time and he hangs his head, defeated by the cruel reality of things. Merlin, though, has a last surprise for him. He takes the prince - no, the king's - right hand in his and places a soft kiss to its knuckles.

“Everything will be over soon.”, he whispers softly, before he resumes cleaning.

Lancelot doesn’t think it will be over soon, though.

Nor does he think Nimue will ever leave his friend’s thoughts.

She was a witch, that one, and it wouldn’t be surprising to learn she would hunt Arthur for the rest of his days.

But this time he’s sure that Arthur, utterly defeated, has spotted him from the corner of his eye.

He feels the man's hollow gaze etching itself into him.

***

In a couple of days Arthur is back up on his feet.

He doesn’t talk about what happened, nor to Lance or anyone else; he just makes sure to remove the gossipmongers from his retinue – by invitation or sheer force – while Merlin informs the population that Arthur has been sick, stricken by the same plague that oh-so- tragically took the life of the Lady of _Llyn Ogwen_ and that the Sheath of Caliburn, somehow, miraculously, promptly, recovered from.

How convenient of an explanation.

Everyone who knew what truly happened in that room either disappeared mysteriously or suddenly became more quiet – almost mute – as Arthur's circle, that despised her - him, however should they call Nimue - oh so dearly, hold a funeral to pay her tribute; a small, private ceremony- a body burned by the shallow of the lake, where, after their departure, the common folks might gather, may they be in need to mourn or to seek comfort. 

They, unlike the men that compose Arthur's entourage, truly loved Nimue. Adored her even.

And so they leave for Camelot as the people of Maris hurl their cries to the impassive waves of lake.

***

It is on the night prior to his formal coronation, the evening before to the Bear of Mynydd Baddon’s grand speech that it happens again; this time not because of Lancelot’s initiative.

No.

It is Arthur that sneaks - way past midnight - in Lancelot’s new chambers, the ones that have been assigned to him as part of the new king’s royal retinue and it is in the lancer’s bed that the now almost king jumps onto after pulling the covers, first to let himself in and then to cover them both.

Lance is awake, as he always is nowadays.

It is hard for him to adjust to a soft bed when he was used to sleep in damp cots, between the heat of his companions, while it is easy for him to open his eyes when his friend – who he hadn’t spoken to in weeks – climbs onto his bed.

He knew from the beginning it was him, he had learned to recognize his smell since the last time they were together.

They say nothing, though, nor they try and touch one another.

They just stare into each other’s eyes, as much as the dim light of the moon allows them, until Arthur takes the first step and extends his hand to Lancelot’s sinewy left arm, caressing it.

“Tell me a story”, he says, putting his thumb between his lips and lazily sucking.

And truly, Lancelot has no idea if Arthur honestly doesn't know how he looks like, like this, especially to someone of Lancelot's preferences: all bathed and perfumed, his grey eyes as beautiful as ever, so lucid under the rays of the moon that they almost look like silver crescents themselves.

His skin is soft and the long locks of corvine hair that fall on his face only enhance the thickness of his tender, velvety black beard and Lancelot briefly wonders if the stories surrounding his friend since his birth are true; how can he be from this world?

Maybe he comes from that place that Christians call Heaven.

Or maybe he belongs to the flowery plains of Annwn and he is one of his lost dwellers; a curious ghost that forgot to go back before the doors of the realm were sealed, at the end of Samhain, a dawn of twenty five years ago.

Lancelot sighs and before engulfing Arthur in a tight embrace, he begins to tell him the story of Rhiannon, one of his all time favorites.

But the man falls asleep so fast that the soft words of the tale become nothing more than distant echos in the night.

***

"Do you love me, Arthur?" Nimue had said from on top of him the night before it all went down, still fresh from sex and naked like her lover.

There was never penetration during their encounters - at least until the next day came - because as they stated many times before, Nimue's hole was way too small for them to do so, and Arthur hadn't even been sure if it was ever meant to be penetrated.

They had known so little about Nimue's body, Arthur would realize the coming evening between tears as he uselessly tried to stop the blood loss from his unconscious lover's genitals.

"Of course.", Arthur replied, steadily. "Why would you even feel the need to ask?"

He had seen the tears forming in her one good eye, as the other's cavity started itching and pouring a weird liquid that would always form whenever Nimue felt the need to cry.

"I just need to hear it, Arthur. Can't you just fucking indulge me?"

"I am", he replied, trying to reach for her cheek, so he could wipe away her tears. She rejected him.

"It is only you and I, my love", Arthur had tried to reassure her, "You and I and no one else."

Nimue had smiled then, let him look at her from under the locks of her red wild hair.

" Let's go to the shallow, Arthur.", she said, "Let's meet again at _Llyn Ogwen_."

**Author's Note:**

> Nimue - one of the many names of the Lady of the Lake, in my version a fairy who is Arthur's lover  
> Cei - The celtic version of the name Kay, who is Arthur's foster brother and senescalach. He is also one of the earliest characters to be associated with the Arthurian mythology, appearing in a number of early Welsh texts.  
> Llyn Ogwen - A ribbon lake in north-west Wales, which I deliberately chose as home for the french legend of the Lady of the Lake  
> Mynydd Baddon - How in welsh The Battle of Badon is called, purportedly fought between Celtic Britons and Anglo-Saxons in Britain in the late 5th or early 6th century. It was credited as a major victory for the Britons, stopping the encroachment of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms for a period. It is also known today for the supposed involvement of King Arthur, a tradition that first clearly appeared in the 9th-century Historia Brittonum, possibly written by Nennius.  
> Annwn - it is the otherworld in welsh mythology. The earliest welsh sources to Arthur's legend connect him to this place and some scholars believe that Arthur was, in fact, one of its deities, probably a hunter-like figure that was later turned into a legendary king.  
> Caliburn - it's the real sword in the stone, the one that Arthur extracts from the hard rock. It is one of the Three holy weapons wielded by Arthur. Excalibur comes later.  
> Myrdinn Emrys - literally, "Merlin the Immortal", as he's called in some of the earliest sources  
> Bedwyr - welsh for Bedivere  
> Maris - In the Arthurian cycle, Hector de Maris is one of the knights of the Round Table and half brother of Lancelot, but I rearranged his pg to be Arthur's protector, so the name I gave to his lands is that of Maris  
> gwyddbwyll - an ancient celtic board game  
> Ghràdhaich aon - Loved one in scots gaelic. I picture Merlin as a pict so I tried to better contextualize him through the use of this term of endearment. Like Bealtaine, Samhain was seen as a liminal time, when the boundary between this world and the Otherworld could more easily be crossed. This meant the Aos Sí, the 'spirits' or 'fairies', could more easily come into our world  
> Samhain - a Gaelic festival marking the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter. Like Beltane, it was seen as a liminal time, when the boundary between this world and the Otherworld could more easily be crossed. This meant the Aos Sí, the 'spirits' or 'fairies', could more easily come into our world  
> Rhiannon - a major figure in the Mabinogi, a medieval welsh story collection.


End file.
